At an extraordinary session of the U.N. General Assembly starting
Sept. 14, world leaders will try to achieve a historic turning
point, 60 years after the institution's founding and at a time
when it has never been more controversial. The odds against success,
regrettably, are long.

On the agenda in New York is
reform of the United Nations to make it more relevant in a new
and challenging age and, perhaps most difficult, to amend its
rules to make it more effective. A set of reforms to be presented
has just been challenged by the Bush administration, which demands
extensive changes before a final vote.

Even if negotiations can resolve
the issue raised by this 11th-hour U.S. intervention, fundamental
questions remain: Can the United Nations be saved? If so, how?
And just what is the United Nations? The short answers: (1) uncertain;
(2) with great difficulty; (3) not so obvious as it may seem.

So many people, especially
many Americans - including John Bolton, the new U.S. ambassador
who has proposed last-minute changes on behalf of the administration
- have thought of the agency as something to be manipulated or
coerced into following U.S. policy prescriptions. A House bill
passed in June threatens to cut by half the 22 percent U.S. share
of the U.N. budget unless the world body adopts more than 40
U.S.-favored reforms. That bill is unlikely to become law, but
it's a familiar example of an outmoded approach.

There was a time when the United
Nations willingly followed the U.S. lead.

In 1950, for example, the Truman
administration won Security Council backing to use military force
to repel North Korea's invasion of South Korea. That happened
because the Soviets were boycotting the council over its refusal
to seat the new Communist government in China and thus couldn't
cast a veto. Then-U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie called the
invasion "war against the United Nations." And the
three-year conflict that followed, at least officially, pitted
the United Nations against Communist North Korea and, eventually,
Communist China.

How the world has changed.
In 2003, the Bush administration failed to persuade the Security
Council that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime posed such a threat
that force was needed to remove it. Stymied, Bush launched a
war that divided U.N. members and caused an estrangement between
Washington and some allies - France and Germany, especially -
that has yet to fully heal.

That rift may be on the mend.
But other divisions will test the capacity of U.N. member states
to find common ground and make changes proposed by an advisory
body and by Secretary-General Kofi Annan:

- Replacing the discredited
human-rights commission with a new body that would exclude such
abusive regimes as those of Sudan, Syria, Libya and Cuba;

- Agreeing on a definition
of terrorism, no easy feat given Muslim countries' defense of
the use of violence against Israel by Palestinians, whom they
regard not as terrorists but as freedom fighters;

- Establishing criteria for
humanitarian intervention under the U.N. flag in situations -
the Darfur region of Sudan is an example - in which people are
victimized by their own government;

- Demanding better financial
management;

- Calling for substantial increases
in aid to poor countries;

- And, far from the least,
reforming internal procedures meant to prevent such scandals
as the one surrounding the oil-for-food program in Iraq in which
some officials have been accused of corruption.

All these issues are important.
But the key to making the United Nations a more credible peacekeeping
institution - its primary function as envisioned by the U.N.
Charter - lies in the Security Council. Its composition and its
voting rules are key to restoring its effectiveness. But therein
lies a potentially insuperable obstacle.

Most countries, and a majority
of Americans, support the United Nations, warts and all, and
wish to see it realize its potential. But the major powers' support
tends to be more a function of their own interests, and many
critics see the United States as the worst offender.

President Bush's decision to
launch the war in Iraq without seeking council approval that
he knew would not be forthcoming remains widely resented, as
does his rejection of the Kyoto global-warming treaty, the International
Criminal Court and provisions of arms-control treaties that limit
U.S. options - all of which are part of Washington's last-minute
attempt to win changes in the reform proposal.

Since World War II ended in
1945, only the five victorious powers - the United States, Britain,
China, France and Russia - have held the veto power. Now there
is disagreement over whether new permanent members should have
it. Washington and Beijing oppose that because, they say, on
divisive issues it would paralyze the council. Moreover, they,
or any permanent member, could block any change they don't like
by refusing to ratify it, even if it had been approved by a two-thirds
vote of the General Assembly.

In 1994, the Clinton administration,
stung by the deaths of American soldiers in Somalia only months
before, prevented the council from authorizing intervention in
Rwanda until long after it might have been possible to save many
lives. Today, the likelihood of a Chinese or Russian veto largely
explains why the United Nations has responded so limply to the
carnage in Darfur, which Washington has called genocide. A similar
threat stands as a barrier to any attempt to deter Iran from
pursuing nuclear ambitions, conceivably including atomic weapons.

These examples show how the
ideal of a universal institution shaping a peaceful and prosperous
world repeatedly bumps up against the interests of nations that
insist on the right to pursue their vital interests. That others
do not see a rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, for example, as
a legitimate U.S. interest is a source of friction. So is Washington's
belief that North Korea should be barred from developing nuclear
energy even for peaceful purposes.

Perhaps some of these standoffs
can be compromised away. But some cannot, and the problem exists
even within the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Europe - at least Western Europe,
or "Old Europe," as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
has called it - has moved far from the time when it resorted
to war to settle its differences. Indeed, a German commentator
has praised the European Union, above all, for "winning
the war against war."

Clearly, the United States
hasn't yet reached that point and is unlikely to for as long
as it remains the only superpower. And even that label means
less than it once did, given the failure of the world's greatest
military power to defeat the insurgency in Iraq, or the failure
of the Bush administration to bend others to its will on a wide
range of issues.

In 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia
ended Europe's Thirty Years' War and established the principle
of national sovereignty. Today, that principle is far from being
replaced by a universal form of government that idealists have
long advocated. Next month's meeting at the United Nations is
unlikely to change that state of affairs. Besides, the agency's
greatest ambition ought to be - must be - to make changes that
enhance the possibility of peace, and of the human well-being
for which peace is an indispensable prerequisite, closer to reality.

The Sacramento Bee's
Robert Mott can be reached at rmott(at)sacbee.com
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.shns.com